Video Essentials

HTML5 Video Isn’t There Yet; Here’s What’s Missing

“When we talk about HTML5, we’re talking about mobile devices,” said Ashraf AlKarmi, head of product management for Brightcove at the recent HTML5 Video Summit in Los Angeles.

While HTML5 has been pushed ahead by mobile devices, it will eventually take over the desktop, as well. AlKarmi’s talk looked at where HTML5 video is now and where it needs to go to fully develop.

“When you think about HTML5, we encourage you to be pragmatic and not dogmatic. So you have to actually think: what is practical?” asked AlKarmi. “If you actually implement [a complete HTML5 solution], it can work but at the same time you’re losing a lot of different things. You’re losing all the IE8 people in the world. So let’s be realistic — that’s a lot of people. IE7, they still exist, believe it or not.”

At the moment, sites will want to use a combination of Flash and HTML5 video to reach all viewers.

“Let’s plan for HTML5. It’s a future thing, we all agree. But let’s not just be completely aggressive and don’t apply practice into this theory,” said AlKarmi.

Looking ahead, AlKarmi outlined what’s still missing in HTML5 video.

“What does it take for HTML5 to be truly compelling? I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but it depends…It depends on your use case,” said AlKarmi. “If we want to make HTML5 truly compelling, there are several things that need to happen.”

The first of those things is consistency.

“Regardless of your implementation, you want to make sure your player works across all these devices. You want to build amazing experiences, and this is applicable to everyone trying to implement an HTML5 solution,” noted AlKarmi. “HTML5 has the chance to bring more compelling experiences than Flash, and the reason for that is because when you’re actually interacting with a player you’re leveraging web technologies that are available. You’re not recreating things in ActionScript.”